


Dearest

by pearypie



Series: blue moonlight on yellow sand [4]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst and Romance, Confessions, Dark, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 01:42:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13730436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearypie/pseuds/pearypie
Summary: It takes an unholy storm of thunder and fury to force them into confrontation.After all, they never fell out of love.Pre-canon.





	Dearest

Torrents of wind and rain whip against the wall and windows of Phantomhive Manor as the winter gale roars her disapproval, furious in her indignation while thunder cracks in the black distance, giving sharp light to sodden trees and water-drenched roads.

Yet even the sound and fury of mother nature, however terrible, cannot be seen within the carefully construed country manse, with its heavy velvet drapes drawn over paned glass and darkness quieting the storm outside. 

Within a conclave of warmth and gold-threaded rugs, an elaborate brick fireplace crackles with yellow-crimson flames, illuminating two figures sitting round a low-lacquered coffee table. The dimly lit chandeliers and frosted gas lamps dotting rosewood walls offer a soft glow that is almost intimate, as if the darkness were tying them together, binding these two figures in silent prayer. Around them the carpeted floor, the damask walls, and the heavy furniture radiate familiarity.

All mahogany and velvet and very much her brother’s taste.

(Though if one looks closer they will see the light, airy paintings of Boucher hanging against maroon walls. Baroque vases gilded in gold sitting atop heavy mahogany side tables. Silver sabres hung in an X formation and resting proudly above the fireplace.) 

Before her, Vincent cradles a newborn infant in his arms, looking so thoroughly domestic that Frances is stuck somewhere between disbelief and desperate longing.

They are seated across from one another, a small tea table in between them even as the clock strikes twelve.

_Midnight._

There is something unholy about this image in front of her—of seeing the Queen’s Watchdog tending to a swathed infant boy sleeping soundly against his chest.

Frances knows she is tense tonight, can feel her fingernails etching half-moon crescents into the fine cherrywood of her brother’s wingback chair. She feels like both woman and war, fire coursing through her veins and hands itching to do something— _anything_ —to break the stillness they’ve trapped themselves in.

How long has it been, she wonders, since she last spoke to her brother? _Truly_ spoken to him—without formality or expectation?

“Something on your mind little sister?” Vincent murmurs with half a smile, sounding so lazily content that even his eyes—forever twinkling with derisive charm—have softened to something sweeter, something more genuine than any expression he’s worn since he was nine years old. The curve of his mouth is soft, almost careful, as he takes in his sister. “Frances?” He asks again, taking pains to keep his voice low—to be considerate and gentle and _fatherly._

“Hm?” Her eyes are glued to Vincent and the baby, how the child stirs ever so slightly, further cocooning himself in the cashmere blankets.

Her brother laughs. “He likes me.” Vincent declares proudly, sounding so charmed by the notion that Frances refrains from commenting that the baby would not protest to anyone, asleep as was. “Frannie?”

“Yes?”

“He _likes_ me.” He repeats again, sounding no less awed but a little more insistent.

“What of it?” She shoves down that feeling—that awful feeling of betrayal and desire that she promised never to feel once she became Marchioness of Scotney. “Surely you didn’t expect him to hate you?”

Vincent shrugs. “Wouldn’t be uncommon.” He says matter-of-factly. “You remember that Croatian informant we tracked down five or six years ago? She _despised_ me.”

“You killed her husband and held her twelve year old daughter hostage.” Frances returns flatly. “She had no reason to like you.” 

“Well she served me gruel and called me an idiot. I had no reason to like her but did you see me trying to shove a dagger in her back? No.” He returns his gaze to the newborn, taking in his closed eyes and plump, rosy cheeks and suddenly, that smile is back. The smile he wore when he was seven and eight and nine—when Frances fell from the walnut tree and Vincent pressed kisses against her mouth.

Against the shadows of night, Vincent smiles with the same inhibition and joy he once used to before death and duty became their new way of life.

“Frances,” Vincent tears his gaze from the infant to look at her with a tenderness she had almost forgotten. “ _Frances_ —“

She closes her eyes. “I know, Vincent.”

“He looks like you. So much like you.”

“Vincent—“

“It’s pathetic but I have to thank god for this storm trapping you here.”

She bites her tongue, hands clenching against the arm rests because her brother needs to _shut up,_ she doesn’t want to think about _that,_ she doesn’t want to remember that this distance is manmade and false and _cowardly—_

“I’ve been pretending he’s ours for the past five hours, Frances. He could be too. See? He’s not afraid of me—not afraid of _this._ You even chose the perfect name.”

“I named him after Saint Edward the Confessor.” Frances shot back. “That’s as far from Phantomhive as one can get.”

Vincent shrugs, giving her another impassive smile that’s all at once cruel and beautiful. “You also named him after Edward, the Black Prince. A man who died and left chaos in his wake—fitting, isn’t it?”

“You continue that line of thinking and I’ll remove your head from your shoulders.”

“Ah, you’re all talk tonight baby sister.” Vincent adjusts Edward in his arms. “You love us too much.”

She turns her cheek.

“It’s why you gave him my name, isn’t it?”

 _Edward Vincent._ She thought it was only fitting—thought it was the only name her baby could bear, with Midford and Phantomhive blood running in his veins.

“Enough, Vincent. Let it end. Stop pretending as if anything more could ever possibly come of this—“

“I love you.” He says plainly—simply. “I _adore_ you, and you couldn’t even invite me to Edward’s christening.”

“You were in Vladivostok. Trapped in a blizzard in _Russia_ and I thought that was the end of it.” She fights the choked sob in her throat because _god,_ she’s missed him. “And even then you still sent Diedrich to give Edward his christening gift and that…that _letter_.” She swallows her tears, ignores how desperately she’s missed him because she is Frances _Midford_  nowand no matter how desperately she wants to be embraced by her brother, to be held in his arms and loved by him as she's always been, she simply _cannot._

For a moment, solemn silence follows, broken only by the crackling of the fireplace.

Then—

“We’ve never been one for honor, have we?” He asks this so causally, as if it were a universal truth simply waiting to be acknowledged, that Frances doesn’t know whether to cry or scream.

How can she go about wearing the Midford lion when _this_ is all she wants? To be locked away in some place far away with Vincent and her baby, to be loved by them and no one else.

Frances has always hated the false sentiment of others and, until she was fifteen, wanted very little to do with the outside world if she could help it. She and Vincent preferred it that way—two moths dancing to a tuneless melody, neither knowing what the steps were and neither caring to find out.

Neither objecting when Vincent loved her with holy passion and neither wanting to break the pattern.

“He isn’t a bad fellow.” Vincent says suddenly and when Frances raises her head in question, he merely smiles. “Midford,” her brother clarifies, “there were far worse candidates who vied for your hand. Yet even so,” he rises from his seat, Edward still held in his arms.

She watches as he comes to stand before her and some force compels her to rise as well.

They meet, eyes fixed on one another—a smile on his lips and her heart bleeding with a love she is unable to verbalize.

“Even so,” her brother repeats, “they don’t look at you the way I do.”

“Don’t they?” Her lips are numb when she speaks.

Vincent shakes his head. “No, they don’t.”

“And how do you look at me then? What makes you different, brother of mine?”

“To me, Frances,” he lowers his head, breath intermingling with hers, “you’re the first woman of creation. You’re everything—everything in this world and everything beyond it.” He presses his forehead against hers and she thinks _no, I will not cry—I shall not cry—_

“Do you really love me that much?” She asks tenuously, shedding the skin of decorum and dignity when her hands move to clutch at Vincent’s jacket lapels, to bring him closer, to hold onto some part of him—

 _Can anyone,_ she wants to scream, _can anyone ever love someone that much?_

The darkness of night falls over them and Frances finds herself drowning, unable to find an anchor to clutch onto—unable to see anything but obsidian and sin and every terrible thing she’s ever done.

But when Vincent kisses her, his mouth warm and familiar against her lips, her fingers find something solid—something _good_ —and she holds onto it, leaning into him with Edward in between.

This could be home, she thinks.

He could be hers and she could be his and— _this could be home._

**Author's Note:**

> \- Saint Edward the Confessor: the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings of England. His nickname reflects all things unworldly and pious. 
> 
> \- Edward, the Black Prince: the eldest son of King Edward III, he is well known for his many military exploits (including participating in the early years of the Hundred Years War). It was Edward’s untimely death at the age of 45 that allowed his inept and tyrannical son Richard II to ascend to the English throne. His misrule would lead to the infamous War of the Roses fought between the houses of Lancaster (who overthrew Richard II) and York. (Basically, Vincent’s very uncouth joke revolved around how Frances supposedly named Edward after a historical figure who was not only a man of bloodshed and violence but a man whose dynasty was ultimately destroyed by one fatal stroke of untimely fate. Also a not-so-subtle reference to the sudden and inexplicable events of December 14th.) 
> 
> \- “…you’re the first woman of creation” — line spoken by Marcello Mastroianni’s Rubini to his dream girl Sylvia (played by Anita Ekberg who I also headcanon as the perfect Frances) from Federico Fellini’s 1960 film La Dolce Vita 
> 
> A/N: Shamelessly addicted to this pairing. 
> 
> Feedback welcomed :)


End file.
